End of Summer photos

Lizzie playing with Tat's boyfriend Chase.

 We went for a walk to the pond where Lizzie fed the ducks. 

Abbie slept on the way back and Tav woke up.

The results from our garden.

Abbie rolls to a location, then explores what she finds there.

 Tav has been getting up on his knees and rocking. Any day now he'll figure out what to do with his hands.

We're up to peas on the solid foods.

Summer Family photos

I'm awful about posting. So here are recent family photos posted without comment.

Natural Parenting

Slightly adapted from xkcd #674.

Brittani's photos of the twins

My sister in law took these photos of the twins about three weeks ago:

Housework

I will now catch up on some photos and stories from the last two weeks.

First, my dad and I decided to fix some squeaky floorboards and find out what was blocking the vent into the living room. We discovered that the vent wasn't blocked, it just wasn't attached.

That pipe in the top-center is where it comes from the heater, and the one in the far center is where it goes to the living room. The only way we were getting anything out of it was by pressurizing the entire basement first. Here's my dad with the fixed duct.

The squeaky floorboards turned out to be harder to fix. The floor beam (you can just see it next to the duct above in the top-right corner) had rotted away. So the floor squeaked and the entertainment center shook anytime someone walked by because the floorboards span nearly 7 feet unsupported. 

The temporary fix was to cut out (really pull out by hand) the deteriorated beam and jam a new beam through the gap in the stone foundation (from 1895ish). I'd show you a picture, but it's just a piece of wood in the dark. Later we will add bolts to more firmly attach it to the remnants of the existing beams, but that process will involve a hydraulic jack.

Second story: fire.

We got a burn permit and burned all the remaining dead wood we had in the yard. Here's the first of the three piles.

In the end we were left with a 2-foot-across pile of ash in place of our three piles.

Third: These happened while playing apples-to-apples with the family (which goes to show their sense of humor). If you've never played before, the green card is randomly selected, then everyone plays a red card from their hand to try to match that adjective.

Photos from the week

Abbie's First Smile

This just happened:
Este pasó hace un rato:

St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day
Dia de San Patricio

Two for the Price of One?

The twins have been home a week.

Some people have tried to express the idea that there is a "two for the price of one" deal with twins. And I don't know what they're talking about (and have come to the conclusion that they must not know either).

Surely you can't mean economically: the hospital and our insurance are discussing just how much they're going to pay but the hospital's starting point in the bargaining was $125,000 each! So it can't be in terms of actual monetary price that people are talking about.  (Thankfully, our insurance has an out-of-pocket maximum that caps out how much we'll have to pay around the $7,500 range - which we have saved up. Brooke and I both feel that this is one of those little blessings that comes from paying your tithing regularly. And at times like these you discover that the little blessings are actually huge blessings.)

What about in terms of pregnancy difficulty? Well, the first sign that we were having twins was when I joked with Brooke that if her morning sickness was twice as bad, maybe there were twice as many kids. The next week we found out we were having twins and it was funny to see Brooke try to glare at me, smile as wide as she could, and be shell-shocked by the amount our lives had changed in the same instant. Brooke says that the amount of sickness is double, the amount of discomfort is more-than double and the sleep-deprivation during pregnancy is exponential. It's not in terms of stretch-marks either, my "that's no moon" jokes stopped getting courtesy smiles about a month before the twins were born. So it's not in pregnancy effort.

How about delivery? Well, Brooke went into pre-term labor a week before Christmas and stayed in medically-suspended labor until the 19th of January. If Tavian had been head-down, she would have delivered him normally; and if Abbie had then not been head-down, Brooke would then have had to recover from a cesarean section as well. As it is, Brooke does only have one incision scar. (But she made up for that by getting an infection and going back to the hospital for a night.)

Hospital stay? They spent 6-weeks compared to Lizzie's 3 days.
Milk supply? Lactation specialists have Brooke producing nearly a half-gallon per day making for a 9 gallon frozen stockpile.
Diapers? The twins have earned as many Huggies reward points in a week as Lizzie has in the last 2 months.
Laundry? Double the spitting up, blankets, clothes ...
Sleep deprivation? We feed them at the same time and wake the other up if one is hungry to keep them in sync. But Abbie is most alert at 2am-4am and Tav's up at 10am to noon. So if it isn't one it's the other, turning both of us and anyone who has bravely volunteered for a night-shift into a sleep zombie.

My conclusion: anyone who says "Two for the Price of One" is looking for something polite to say but really has no idea what it's like to have twins.  I would suggest the Wrigley Doublemint ad "double your pleasure, double your fun."

The doctor who told us we were having twins (and delivered them) immediately followed up the news with "Oh, you guys are going to have so much fun!" His twins now have kids of their own, but he was right. Three of the nurses we saw regularly in the NICU had twins and another was a twin herself; they all agreed that there was a lot of work involved, but there was more than enough fun to make up for it.

There are moments when one is being cute, or the other, and then there are moments when they are being cute together. Normally when one is being a little devil the other is being a perfect angel, and when one is fussy the other will sleep through it. They seem to work together to get you through their own hard times. And all the doctors and nurses agree that the good times only get better once you get past the one-year mark.

We've had a week trying not to die of the cuteness, and we have a lot more to look forward to.

Los gemelos han estado en casa por una semana.

Algunas personas han tratado de expresar la idea de que gemelos vienen "dos por el precio de uno".  No sé de qué hablan (y he llegado a la conclusión de que no saben ellos tampoco).

Seguramente no pueden hablar del precio económico: el hospital y nuestro seguro están hablando de cuánto van a pagar, ¡pero el primer precio del hospital fue  US$125,000 (MX$1,580,000) cada quien! Por lo tanto, no puede ser el valor monetario de que están hablando. (Afortunadamente, nuestro seguro tiene un máximo de gastos que tapa a las US$ 7.500 - que hemos ya ahorrado. Brooke y yo sentimos que esta es una de esas pequeñas bendiciones que vienen de pagar su diezmo regularmente. Y en momentos como estos descubres que las pequeñas bendiciones son en realidad bendiciones enormes.)

¿Y en cuanto a la dificultad del embarazo? Bueno, la primera señal de que íbamos a tener gemelos era cuando yo bromeaba con Brooke que si su enfermedad de la mañana era el doble de lo malo, a lo mejor había el doble la cantidad de niños. A la semana siguiente nos enteramos de que íbamos a tener gemelos y era divertido ver a Brooke tratar de mirar a mí, hacer la sonrisa tan ancha como pudo, y estar conmocionado por la grandeza del cambiado en nuestras vidas en ese instante. Brooke dice que la enfermedad es  doble, el  malestar es más del doble - y la falta de sueño durante el embarazo es exponencial. No es en términos de marcas del piel, mi "esa no es una luna" bromeas dejaron de recibir sonrisas de cortesía casi un mes antes de que los gemelos nacieron. Así que no es posible que hablan de la dificultad de embarazo.

¿Qué tal el nacimiento? Bueno, Brooke entró en trabajo de parto prematuro a la semana antes de Navidad y salió del laborío médico-suspendido en el 19 de enero. Si Tavian había estado cabeza hacia abajo, podrían nacer normalmente, y Abbie había estado cabeza arriba, Brooke entonces habría tenido que recuperarse de una cesárea también. Como salieron las cosas, Brooke tiene sólo una cicatriz de la incisión. (Pero ella compensaba por eso por contraer una infección y volver al hospital por una noche.)

Estancia hospitalaria? Pasaron seis semanas en comparación a los 3 días de Lizzie.
Producción de leche? Los especialistas en lactancia han ayudado a Brooke a producir casi un medio galón por día y ahora tenemos un arsenal congelado de 9 galones. 
Pañales? Los gemelos han ganado tantos puntos de recompensa Huggies en una semana como Lizzie ha hecho en los últimos 2 meses.
Servicio de lavandería? El doble de escupir para arriba, mantas, ropa ...
La privación del sueño? Les damos de comer al mismo tiempo y despertamos al otro si uno tiene hambre para mantenerlos sincronizados. Pero Abbie está más alerta a las 02 a.m.-04 a.m. y Tav a las 10am hasta el mediodía. Así que si no es uno es el otro, volviendo a nosotros y a cualquiera que se haya ofreció valientemente para un turno de noche a zombis de sueño.

Mi conclusión: el que dice "Dos por el precio de uno" está buscando algo cortés de decir, pero realmente no tiene idea de lo que es tener gemelos. Yo sugeriría que el Wrigley Doublemint anuncio "doble el placer, doble la diversión."

El médico que nos dijo que íbamos a tener gemelos (y los entregó) siguió inmediatamente la noticia con "Ay, ¡ustedes se van a divertir mucho!" Sus gemelos ahora tienen sus propios hijos, pero él tenía razón. Tres de las enfermeras que vimos regularmente en la UCIN tenían gemelos y otra era un gemelo sí misma. Todos están de acuerdo que si hay mucho trabajo, pero hay más que suficiente diversión. 

Hay momentos en que uno está siendo lindo, o el otro, y hay momentos en los que son lindos juntos. Normalmente, cuando uno está siendo un pequeño diablo la otra se pone un ángel perfecto. Parece que trabajan juntos para  llevarnos a través de sus propios tiempos difíciles. Y todos los médicos y enfermeras están de acuerdo en que los buenos tiempos sólo mejoran cuando pasas la marca de un año.

Hemos tenido una semana tratando de no morir de la monería, y esperamos tener muchas más.